Johnson & Johnson submits COVID-19 vaccine booster data to FDA
Johnson & Johnson stated Tuesday that it submitted information to the U.S. Meals and Drug Administration displaying a booster shot of its COVID-19 vaccine is protected and considerably will increase safety towards illness.
Johnson & Johnson says its data, published last month, exhibits a booster given 56 days after a primary dose of its vaccine gives 94% safety towards symptomatic COVID-19 and 100% safety towards extreme illness.
“We look ahead to our discussions with the FDA and different well being authorities to help their selections relating to boosters,” Mathai Mammen, a J&J analysis govt, stated in a statement.
Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine is one among three licensed within the U.S., and by far the least used, with less than 15 million Americans receiving its single-dose shot. Use of the J&J vaccine was paused for 10 days in April after stories of uncommon however harmful blood clots in six ladies who acquired the shot, however the FDA and CDC determined the vaccine’s benefits outweigh its risks.
On Tuesday, officers in Washington state confirmed a feminine resident of King County became the fourth known person in the nation to die of a blood clot after getting the J&J vaccine. Not like the two-dose mRNA vaccines made by Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech, the J&J inoculation is an adenovirus vector vaccine.
Additionally within the information:
►The FDA on Monday authorized a new coronavirus home test that the company says will quickly double the nation’s restricted provide of non-prescription checks.
►Northwell Well being, New York’s largest well being care supplier, stated 1,400 workers, lower than 2% of its complete workforce, have been fired for refusing to be vaccinated towards COVID-19. A statewide vaccination mandate for all hospital and nursing house staff took impact Sept. 27.
►A New York man was charged with a felony and will face seven years in prison for faking a COVID-19 vaccine card.
►The European Union’s drug regulator gave its backing Monday to administering booster photographs of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for folks 18 and older.
►Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison stated Tuesday that international guests to the nation would not be allowed again till not less than subsequent yr.
📈 In the present day’s numbers: The U.S. has recorded greater than 43.8 million confirmed COVID-19 circumstances and greater than 703,000 deaths, in line with Johns Hopkins University data. International totals: Greater than 235.5 million circumstances and 4.8 million deaths. Greater than 185.8 million People – 56.3% of the inhabitants – are absolutely vaccinated, according to the CDC.
📘 What we’re studying: COVID-19 vaccines may very well be out there for youthful youngsters in a matter of weeks – however consultants fear whether or not communities of coloration could have an equal shot at defending their youngsters. Read more here.
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Iowa professor punished for requiring masks plans to do it once more subsequent semester
When College of Northern Iowa professor Steve O’Kane determined to require masks in his plant systematics class this fall, he was absolutely conscious that he was breaking state Board of Regents coverage. Final week, O’Kane was stripped of his means to show the category this semester in consequence.
Nonetheless, he plans to require masks again next semester, even when it means termination.
“To not disobey is to confess defeat. And what the administration is pressured to do – please be aware my phrases – what the administration is pressured to do is immoral and unethical. And all of it boils all the way down to Iowa politics,” O’Kane stated in an interview.
O’Kane’s defiance of the regents’ coverage prohibiting masks necessities is the most important escalation in what has been weeks of back-and-forth between college at UNI, Iowa State and the College of Iowa, their administrations and the Board of Regents over how one can greatest shield the neighborhood from the unfold of COVID-19.
– Cleo Krejci, Iowa Metropolis Press-Citizen
AstraZeneca seeks FDA authorization for its antibody remedy
AstraZeneca on Tuesday stated that it was in search of FDA emergency use authorization for its “long-acting” antibody mixture to deal with COVID-19.
AstraZeneca says its AZD7442 remedy, a mixture of the antibodies tixagevimab and cilgavimab, is designed to have extra sturdiness than conventional antibodies. Most treatments are prescribed early in the course of disease, and whereas extremely efficient at stopping hospitalization and demise, the safety is short-term. AstraZeneca says its antibody remedy may present as much as a yr of safety.
In its scientific trial, AstraZeneca stated the remedy lowered the chance of symptomatic COVID by 77%, and greater than 75% of the examine inhabitants had an elevated danger of extreme issues from COVID.
Poor well being selections are killing rural People, and COVID is making it worse
Rural Americans are up to 20% more probably than their city counterparts to die from sicknesses akin to most cancers, coronary heart illness and decrease respiratory infections, a new federal study confirmed.
Lack of entry to well being care, poverty, smoking and heavy consuming all play a task in driving up the disparity between rural and concrete residents – a spot probably now additional exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and closure of rural hospitals.
The federal examine examined the ten main causes of demise nationally from 2009 by means of 2019. It additionally discovered folks in cities live longer than their rural counterparts, and that the well being disparities are rising. Rural People are additionally dying from COVID-19 infections at about twice the speed of city People, based on data analyzed by the Middle for Rural Well being Coverage Evaluation on the College of Iowa.
Dr. Varinder Singh, chair of the cardiology division at New York Metropolis’s Lenox Hill Hospital, stated it is essential to keep in mind that well being care disparities exist in city areas too, particularly inside communities of coloration. However he stated the federal examine raises essential questions in regards to the rising urban-rural divide, and will immediate discussions about how one can successfully attain rural populations with public-health messages.
– Trevor Hughes
US on verge of extra COVID deaths in 2021 than 2020
The U.S. will quickly attain extra COVID-19 deaths this yr than in all of 2020, in line with Johns Hopkins College information.
Greater than 703,000 People have died of the illness, and the Washington Nationwide Cathedral is planning to toll its funeral bell 700 instances Tuesday night in reminiscence of the lives misplaced.
The solemn ceremony comes as COVID-19 circumstances, deaths and hospitalizations within the U.S. are trending downward, in line with Johns Hopkins College information, although not sufficient to stop making 2021 deadliner than 2020, when 352,000 People have been killed by COVID.
In comparison with 4 weeks in the past, hospitalizations for the most recent week are down 26.9%, and the variety of ICU beds occupied by probably COVID-19 sufferers is down 25.3%, in line with the information. The tempo of fatalities has decreased as effectively, about 12% from the Sept. 22 peak.
– Mike Stucka
Nationwide Institutes of Well being director to step down by finish of yr
The director of the Nationwide Institutes of Well being, Dr. Francis S. Collins, says he’s stepping down by the tip of the yr, having led the analysis middle for 12 years and grow to be a distinguished supply of public info through the coronavirus pandemic.
“There comes a time the place an establishment like NIH actually advantages from new imaginative and prescient, new management,” Collins, 71, stated in an interview with The Washington Submit. “This was the precise timing.”
A proper announcement was anticipated Tuesday from NIH. The Submit and Politico reported Collins’ plans Monday night time.
Based mostly in Bethesda, Maryland, and part of the Division of Well being and Human Companies, NIH is the nation’s medical analysis company and operates greater than two dozen institutes and facilities. It lays declare to being the most important supporter of biomedical analysis on the planet.
– The Related Press
Alabama demise toll doubles from 2020
COVID-19 has already killed twice as many individuals in Alabama this yr because it did in all of 2020, Johns Hopkins College information exhibits.
The state was doubly punished by final yr’s fall-winter wave of coronavirus, then the more moderen delta variant-driven wave. The illness killed 4,827 folks in Alabama in 2020, and an analogous quantity from Jan. 1 to Feb. 23 this yr.
Since July 1, when the delta variant actually started taking off in the US, COVID-19 has killed greater than 3,100 folks in Alabama.
CDC: ‘Keep away from journey’ to Barbados, Croatia due to ‘excessive’ circumstances
The Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention’s checklist of nations the place People should avoid travel because of “very high” COVID-19 cases grew once more Monday, with Barbados and Croatia essentially the most notable additions.
Different nations raised to stage 4, the company’s highest journey well being alert stage: Austria, Armenia, Latvia and New Caledonia. All had been at stage 3, which signifies case counts are “excessive.”
Greater than 80 nations are actually on the ever-changing checklist of nations vacationers ought to keep away from, together with Jamaica, Aruba, Belize, the UK, Greece and different standard vacationer locations. Read more here.
– Daybreak Gilbertson
Pandemic’s drain on training may grow to be financial drawback for Texas
Greater than 1 million Texans misplaced jobs seemingly in a single day and the state’s unemployment charge practically quadrupled when the coronavirus pandemic first slammed the financial system early final yr.
However a much less seen affect of the pandemic – a steep decline in instructional attainment by Texas college students amid the disaster – may find yourself having even greater unfavorable financial penalties long run, in line with the state’s high public college official.
“That is the most important drawback going through the state of Texas – the issue of constructing certain that our citizenry is educated to benefit from the alternatives” generated by the financial system sooner or later, Texas Schooling Commissioner Mike Morath stated.
Morath stated the proportion of third graders within the state who meet grade-level proficiency in studying and math has dropped precipitously because the begin of the pandemic. Read more here.
– Bob Sechler, Austin American-Statesman
Contributing: The Related Press